1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to location determining systems and specifically to location detection via consumer service devices (CSDs). Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for enabling utilization of a CSD to provide location specific information within retail environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Consumer service devices (CSDs) are being introduced in various environments to provide assistance to consumers. For example, in retail establishments, CSDs are utilized to provide customers with pre-programmed information specific to the retail establishment as a whole (e.g., which products are discounted on that day, etc.) and thus improve the customers' overall shopping experiences.
Current use of these devices is, however, very limited because of the difficulty in accurately determining the current location of the CSD and providing the customer with location-specific (e.g., on sale/discounted/available items in the vicinity, etc.) information on the fly. Providing location-specific information requires the accurate determination of the location of the CSD device within the establishment.
One existing method for determining the current location of a CSD utilizes infrared (IR) beacons suspended from the ceiling of the establishment. IR beacons (such as provided by Cuesol Corporation) are typically battery powered, and a large number of these IR beacons must be installed in a store in order to obtain the location accuracy desired to assist the consumer. Thus, the total installation cost for this implementation is extremely high. Also, the implementation presents a maintenance problem with frequent changing of batteries for the large number of suspended IR beacons. Hard wiring the beacons to a power source has also been suggested, but the installation is much more labor intensive.
Another method measures the amplitude of the CSD's wireless LAN (local area network) signals when the signals are received at multiple wireless LAN access points to determine the location of the CSD. However, the wireless LAN-based location systems also do not provide the location accuracy desired to be effective.